Siem Reap, Cambodia
Although we were a little tired after our whirlwind tour of Vietnam, we still had one more stop before heading back to Taiwan. We arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia where we were greeted by our guide, Thai, and had our first taste of some very un-February-like weather. In Tainan I seldom saw 25 degree Celsius days during the winter, but apparently they are not uncommon in Cambodia.
Our main reason for visiting Siem Reap was to see Angkor Wat, and as with almost everything else on this trip, it did not disappoint. We spent an entire day touring the temples of Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat and, as our guide also works on the temple restoration project, we were able to learn more about them than we would ever want to know. The temples were actually built by the Khmer people (pronounced Kh-mai) to honor the god-king and were not expected to last as long as they did. As it is, the restoration project takes considerable work because the ground underneath the temple is waterlogged, so there is a great risk of the walls separating and cracking over time. Still, many of the original carvings are preserved, depicting both mythological events and elements from Khmer daily life. Some of the carvings reveal the multiracial nature of Khmer society; there were panels where it was fairly easy to distinguish between Khmer and Chinese soldiers. Other panels had carvings of mythological creatures such as the naga (a multi-headed serpent) and the garuda (a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bird). In one area of the temple, there was a bridge with long rows of stone gods and demons each holding a naga, the gods on one side and the demons on the other.
The high point (literally) of our tour of the temples was a visit to the tower at Angkor Wat, where we had the opportunity to climb the stairs and enjoy the view from the top. This was no mean feat, as the stairs are similar to those seen at Mayan temples so it required a bit more mountaineering than walking. However, the view from the top was worth the climb, and the sight of the towers touched gold by the sunset was stunning.
While in Siem Reap, we also had some opportunities to observe the daily life of the Khmer people. We enjoyed lunch with a local family in their wooden house, which was elevated to keep it from being flooded during the spring rains. We also took an ox-cart ride for a tour of a Siem Reap neighborhood, where we were greeted by barefoot children yelling "Hello!" and watched families drying fermented fish called "prahok," which is eaten with rice as a staple food in Cambodia. Like Taiwan's famous "stinky tofu," we were told that the worse it smells, the better it tastes. Finally, we took a boat ride through the floating village on Tonle Sap, where we visited a floating elementary school and toured a neighborhood of Khmer and Vietnamese houseboats. In a scene indicative of the state of Southeast Asian international relations, the Khmer houseboats were on one side of the channel, the Vietnamese ones on the other.
Our visit to Cambodia concluded with a tour of Siem Reap's Killing Fields memorial, which is now a Buddhist monastery. Though not as large as the memorial in Phnom Penh, it is nonetheless a powerful display. The location is marked by a collection of skulls gathered from the fields after the Khmer Rouge left power. The Khmer Rouge, whose political ideology resembled that of the Maoist rebels currently operating in Nepal, brutally slaughtered one-third of Cambodia's population during Pol Pot's regime in 1975-1979. Their targets were the "new people" from the cities, in particular the intellectuals, many of whom were executed in the fields by blows to the back of the head in order to save bullets. Some of the skulls in the display also had cracked facial bones, which according to a retired physician on the tour are very difficult to break and would require a blow of considerable force. During the regime, it was a habit of the Khmer Rouge to tell the people, "To keep you is no benefit, to kill you is no loss." In their effort to exterminate the "new people," they targeted anyone wearing eyeglasses, as this was seen as a sign of being an intellectual. This stigma still carries over to today; during our four days in Cambodia, we did not see a single Khmer person wearing glasses. After such a traumatic past, it is hoped that Cambodia as a nation can look forward to a brighter future.

Photos of Cambodia: http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a356/chinaadventure/Cambodia/